Underrated Books Part 6

 Here is Part 6 of underrated books you should add to your TBR!

Check out the first 5 parts on here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

1. Kitchen Princess manga series by Miyuki Kobayashi and Natsumi Ando. I read this manga when I was in middle school and it's one of my favorites. This is about Najika, a girl who is an orphan who likes cooking and baking. Her birth parents were also famous chefs. One day when she was little she met a mysterious boy who gave her some flan and a fancy spoon to eat it with to cheer her up. Years later she still thinks about him and decides to go find him. She calls him "her Flan prince." She gets a clue about him from the spoon he gave her: it has the seal of a famous cooking school. Najika decides to attend the school to learn to make more foods but also to find her Flan prince. There she gets tangled up in a lot of drama, but also makes new friends along the way. This is such a cute, sweet, and emotional shojo manga! 

2. In The Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord. I read this back when I was in fifth grade. This story is set in the late 1940s and is about Shirley Wong, a 10 year old Chinese girl who moves the the US (specifically to New York City) from China. Everything is brand-new to her, and like any person who moves, especially to a brand new country where you don't speak the language, she has trouble adjusting. But Shirley is able to expand her world, learn some more English, and make new friends through a new hobby: baseball. She especially loves sitting by the radio and listening to the Brooklyn Dodgers' games, and her favorite player is Jackie Robinson. The book is loosely based off of the author's own life!

3. O Pioneers! by Willa Cather. This classic book set in the early 20th century is about a woman named Alexandra Bergson and her younger brother, Emil. They live on a farm in Nebraska that they inherited from their father and spend several years sprucing up the farm and making it a commercial success, even while so many of their neighbors they knew growing up move away. The two siblings also meet so many new people, and begin dealing with their romantic feelings that they've had for two friends they've known since childhood: Alexandra with a man named Carl, and Emil with a woman named Marie. 

4. Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte. This is my favorite Bronte sister novel! Agnes Grey is about, well, Agnes Grey, a young woman who becomes a governess to support her family. Her first employer treats her very poorly, but she finds more companionship in the community of her second employer, mostly with a man named Edward Winston. This book is loosely based off of Anne Bronte's own experience working as a governess. The book also portrays being a governess a little closer to reality, unline Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. Mr. Wenston, in my opinion, is a better love interest than Jane's Mr. Rochester! Anyway, this is an underrrated classic by Anne Bronte I think everyone should read.